Amelia Kirkness
prey animal
1.
my father is a hunter.
he used to go away for the weekend,
bring the rifle and his guy friends and
return with a deer carcass in the back of his truck.
i saw him hauling it once, all furry slump, ragdoll limp
and ready to be carved into venison dinner i would not eat.
another set of antlers to mount in the garage.
i am planning my first tattoo; eyeing the design of a sleeping fawn.
i want her on my thigh. she is long-lashed and perfect,
folding in on herself like the most beautiful and frail thing.
i keep putting it off. i worry about how my cellulite will warp the artist’s work.
2.
my mother was a farm girl.
i was born in spring.
her favourite story of childhood was tailing lambs,
the cute little fluffy pastoral babies in the paddocks
under dappled sunlight amid the dew, undergoing
amputation without pain relief, but for their own good.
my cousin, the champion shearer.
my aunt’s disapproving eye at the girl raised in the city.
they all still think i could do with toughening up.
i have a martyrdom complex and an obsession with my own prettiness,
i have got to be the most beautiful white woollen little thing
ready for my sacrifice. i would hack off my own tail,
slit my own throat to keep her hands cleaner.
3.
when i was little i loved rabbits.
we got one off another family at the primary school,
she was white and speckled with black spots and i named her buttons.
we bought her the loveliest hutch and i fed her carrots by hand
the first year i remember wanting to die.
i soon lost interest in refilling her tray of pellets,
my mum stepped in to dutifully care for my pet
stroked her spoke to her loved her until buttons died
one afternoon right before i came home from debating practice.
i saw her body sprawled across the grass in sunlight as if sleeping
with the breeze ruffling her still-cooling fur and i
cried on the floor with guilt for my uncaring.
these days i’m just like her: a small and soft animal
curling around myself. i wear bunny ears and a puffball tail
to a costume party and imagine i inspire helpless affection,
that i will be held with love until i die.
Amelia Kirkness is a Pōneke-based writer and student of English Literature and Media Studies. Her work has been featured in publications like The Spinoff, bad apple, Salient, and Catalyst, and she is one of the editors of Symposia journal. She likes costume parties, niche Spotify playlists, and Earl Grey tea.